A World Away
by Gabrielle607
Summary: After the recent death of her parents, Mary Eileen Smith struggles to continue living in her current life; a prison of a mansion with only her cousins as her salvation from her irritable grandmother. Just when things started to go south, not even her cousins can save her now.. That was until a certain blue eyed man came into her life. (Slight AU, CURRENTLY BEING RE-WRITTEN)
1. Chapter 1

"Mary, its time," Mike said, standing in the room of his cousin as she sat there on the windowsill, hugging her knees and leaning on the cold glass of the window as she looked at the gathering people outside the estate, their black umbrellas starting to crowd around two holes that were dug in the huge expanse of grass. It was a big affair, this funeral - the heiress of the mysterious and legendary Rogers Estate was finally dead. Well, she was not the only heiress, but being the eldest in the family and the only sister living in the estate, it made her matter. But it matters not, now. In a few minutes, she and her husband will be six feet under the ground with their merry souls hundreds of feet above it. It was as if a small army of umbrellas started to gather around the two white caskets at the top of the small hill in the small cemetery; The Grey Quarter, she'd like to call it, for the dull and grey aura it produced. Only the small hill seemed merry and it was there Elizabeth Rogers Smith wished to be hurried beside her husband and, in the future, her only daughter. "Mary."

"I'm not going down there." She said her glare at the people was as cold as the glass that her head was leaning on. They were all just politicians in the town and social climbers. Only a few of them were really relatives and most of them didn't even know that Elizabeth had a child until the wake. Why did they even bother to come? They didn't care about them when they were living; they didn't care about who they were, how they were great people, or how they became troubled… They just care about what they would get out of their death and their social profile, considering that the Rogers family were the most respected family in town. Mary's distant relatives hoping that Elizabeth left at least a single penny for them. 'Well none of you is getting a single penny, you ignorant fuckers,' Mary thought. 'They made sure to spend every single penny of it so their hard work wouldn't fall into shitty bastards like you.'

"Mary, they're your parents… You have to be there." Mike said, sitting beside his cousin, placing a comforting hand on top of hers.

"I can see them from here. I know exactly how a funeral works, Mike. I'm not as stupid as she says. Besides, I want to be there without those sympathetic sons of bitches telling me how sorry they are that they're gone cuz I had enough for the past week…" She said, glaring back at the people gathered around outside their estate, as if she'll be able to burn holes through their thick skulls.

"Mary, please, what would Aunt Liza say, or Uncle Jon? They'd-"

"Don't you dare assume to know what they'd do! You didn't know them like I did!" She exclaimed, standing up.

"But they were family! They were like a father and mother to me, too!" Mike exclaimed, standing up. Mary sighed, her stony facade breaking as she sat down at her windowsill, her elbows resting on her knees and hands raking through her hair as she broke down. Mike, whose features softened, knelt in front of his cousin as he took her hands in his, tucking her black locks behind her ear.

"Hey, hey, look at me." He said, lifting her chin to look into her brown eyes; eyes that were so afraid of so many things - her parents' death, holding her shit together... living the rest of her life in this God forsaken place of a prison...

How on Earth is she going to make it?

"Mike, I can't do this..." She cried softly, looking down, only for her chin to be lifted up again to look into those brown eyes.

"We'll go through this together, okay? Me and Josh will be here with you -for you. You're gonna be okay." But this seemed to only make her shake with tears as she pried her hands away from his and covered her face. Mike sat beside her and took her in his arms, wondering why God was cruel enough to lay this fate on his cousin.

* * *

It was not long before Mary pulled it together and fixed herself, going to The Grey Quarter with Mike once again after many years, but this time for a funeral. With their arms linked together, the cousins made their way out of the enormous house and spotted Josh standing at the start of the pathway through the forest.

"Gran said to hurry up. She said it can't start without you." Josh said, not really wanting his cousin to hurry up -he'd let her take all the time in the world if she'd had to. He walked beside her, letting her take his hand as they silently made their way to The Grey Quarter.

Once they arrived at the small hill, the first thing they saw was a stout woman making her way towards them; her black veiled hat too big for her head and her pink lipstick too dark and tacky with her outfit. Her once black pixie hair now streaked with grey from a long period of forgotten dying treatments and cut even shorter, making her figure even more rotund.

"Mary, what took you so long?! The guests are waiting!" She hissed as she held on to Mary's wrist in a vice grip, Josh and Mike walking towards their grandmother.

"Gran, she's mourning, let her be." Josh said, irritated by his grandmother's usual outbursts. Mary, however, just stayed quiet; a silent rage fuming up in her as she let her grandmother practically drag her up the hill. The brothers just looked at each other with disapproving looks before following their grandmother up the hill. The rain stopped a few minutes ago, therefore leaving the ground muddy and slippery for the heels of the old ladies and Mary silently thanked that she followed her instinct to wear flats as she watched her grandmother almost trip a few times, hiding her smirks on her shoulder. Soon enough, she took her place beside her grandfather as the ceremony took place -the local priest saying glorious things about heaven and lies on how Elizabeth and Jonathan Smith is in a better place, when the best place they could ever be was beside their daughter, for they were each other's solid brick wall against the storm in their messed up family. And now that they were gone, Mary was now left alone; defenseless.

After the priest's awfully long speech, her grandmother stood in front for her eulogy, tearing up in one eye as she read through her yellow paper about how Elizabeth was the brightest daughter she ever had and how she was the perfect daughter... almost. She spoke about how Elizabeth could've done more and better with her life. Mary knew that her words had a double meaning, for she was there when it was proven how her grandmother was the bitch she had suspected.

_'You, your husband and your daughter are sick… Your daughter was born sick.'_

_'Don't bring her into this.'_

_'The poor girl will grow up just like her father; careless, stupid and no destination in life. How do you expect her to learn when all you do is travel around the world for no apparent reason? She will never be able to finish college like her father, and she'll end up exactly like him!'_

_'Watch your tongue, 's my family you're speaking of.'_

_'And you're slowly turning into one of them. I didn't raise my daughter to be like this… I don't have a daughter, or a granddaughter. Travel all around the world as much as you want; but don't cone running to me when you realize that I was right.'_

She over heard them talking about it a few years ago, when she was in the 9th grade. This fueled her to hate her grandmother even more. She would want nothing more for her to pass away from her old age, but it seems that she won't be going anywhere for the next couple of years. All of the dark thoughts about her grandmother steered clear from her mind as the priest's voice took over her grandmother's. Obviously, she didn't say anything about Mary's father, even though she said she'll make a eulogy for the both of them. After more burial rights, the casket containing Mary's most beloved parents were lowered down, her grandmother howling on her grandfather's shoulder as Mary wept silent tears of sorrow and rage. How dare she weep for them as if she loved them? She's only weeping for the image of what she thinks is her daughter, but in fact, she never knew her daughter. She never liked Jon and always disapproved of him for not finishing college. Mary looked at the black granite stones with her parents' names.

_In loving memory of_

_Elizabeth R. Smith_

_1974-2015_

_And her husband_

_Jonathan C. Smith_

_1970-2015_

She wanted to put something more memorable in their tombstones as her parents wished, like 'The greatest love of all' for her mother or 'Who rocked the world like no other' for her father. But sadly, her grandmother was in charge of the whole affair and did not even listen to one of her suggestions.

'They were 40 and 45… They still could've done so much.' Mary thought about the places they could've seen together, the music they could've listened, the stories they had to tell; they couldn't go… Not yet. Not with so much to do with her. She didn't cry, or shed any more tears, she just stared at the two tombstones, a hole lying where her heart should've been; she had cried enough. She remembered seeing their cold lifeless bodies in the morgue, her mom's head full of scars from the shattered glass and her dad's neck bent from the impact. They had a car accident on their way back to the estate after their date for their wedding anniversary. Mary encouraged them to go out that day; spend time for theirselves. It seemed a good idea before, but now she wished that she'd begged them to stay.

Something wet and leathery nudged her hand, snapping out of her thoughts. She looked down to see a golden brown mass of fur circling around her, almost like a rag moving around by itself.

"Max, buddy, what are you doing out here?" She asked him, squatting down to pat the Cocker Spaniel's head when she felt that tingle at the back of her neck -the one she used to feel when she knew that Chris was watching her from the back of History classes. She looked to her left at the dispersing crowd to see a young man in a suit, holding an umbrella as a cane on one hand and another in his pocket. His shocking blue eyes unreadable as he stared at her, his blonde hair being swept by the wind. His clenched jaw opened as if he was going to speak until Mary turned her attention back to Max, who began licking her palm. Looking up to the greying sky, she patted Max's head and stood up.

"Looks like its gonna rain, Max. Better catch up with the others." She looked to her left again, hoping to see that strange man with those shocking blue eyes again.

He was gone.

* * *

_Hey, this is Chris. Leave a message._

"Hey, Chris! Its Mary... Uh, you missed the ceremony. Are you coming to the dinner, at least? Okay, um... Give me a call if you can't make it, or whatever."

"Must be an important person, if you had to exclude yourself from family for him." Mary's head snapped up to see those pair of shocking blue eyes again, but this time he was actually speaking to her. She stood there, mesmerized for a second before remembering that she excused herself from her family to call her boyfriend, who apparently was not answering her calls or messages. She was getting worried that it might be another car accident. But after her parents' recent accident, who can blame her?

"Oh, um... Its my boyfriend, he was supposed to come," She said, pushing herself off the wall and looking down, tucking her hair behind her ear as she furrowed her eybrpws for a while. She laughed at herself, realizing that she's affecting a stranger with her burdens. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be telling you this," She said, laughing dryly at herself and looking at the man and for the first time, she had a good look at the man. He wasn't that tall, for a man; in fact he was just a tad bit taller than her. But damn, whatever he lacked in his height was made up with his good looks."I'm Mary, by the way." She said, holding her hand out to the mysterious good looking man.

"Henry's granddaughter," He said, shaking her hand. "I'm Fi -Philip..."

"I take it you know my grandfather?" Mary asked, pushing herself off the wall as they started walking towards the parlor.

"Yes, my -er... grandfather knew him. I'm here on his behalf. He's sick, you see," He told her and she nodded. "My condolences, by the way."

"Oh, please. I've heard enough of that for the past week." She scoffed, stopping when Philip's phone rang. He looked at it for a while before placing it back to his pocket and looking up to Mary, apology written over his face.

"Girlfriend?" She asked.

"No, its my brother," He said, running his hand over his short hair, lightly tugging on the small, thin braid at the back of his head. "I'm sorry, I have to go. It was nice to meet you, Mary." He said, smiling and nodded towards her before striding out of the mansion, finally leaving Mary alone in the nightmare she calls a home.

* * *

**Hey guys! So I'm rewriting the whole story cuz the previous version sucked a great deal, so I hope you like this new one!**


	2. Chapter 2

_Red lights mean you're leaving..._

_White ones means returning..._

_To tell me how the story ends._

"Mary."

"Josh." Mary looked up from her pillow, seeing her cousin sit on her office chair, staring at her with his chin rested on his intertwined hands. Its been exactly 36 hours, 19 minutes, and 10 seconds after the funeral and there he sat, observing his oddly calm cousin listening to a song about a car. From his studies, he can tell that she's obviously not over the grieving period, but she's taking it rather well, knowing his cousin and how close she was with her parents; she was so calm about the situation that it scares him a bit.

"Talk to me." He said, staring at her as Mary glared back, letting the song play out in the room.

"Josh, I'm not gonna be one of your college experiments. Don't do your psychological shit on me." She said, hurrying her face back to the pillow.

_The headlights look like diamonds..._

"Are you sure this is the song you want to listen to?" Josh asked, sensing the irony of the situation. Mary just groaned, and stayed silent for a while. Eventually, a weak and muffled 'no' was heard and she turned the music off.

"Mary?"

"Josh."

"Talk to me." He said, moving towards the edge of her bed and leaning towards her, his elbows resting on his denim covered knees.

"No. You'll probably add this to your shitty college reports." She said, her voice muffled from the pillow.

"Mary, I'm not asking you as a psychologist, but I'm asking you as your cousin... It just so happens that your cousin is studying psychology." He said, rolling his eyes at Mary's stubbornness; apparently, it runs in the family.

"Well what do you want me to say?" Mary asked, lifting her head from her pillow. "The funeral was just yesterday! I'm stuck with Gran for the rest of my life and I don't have mom and dad anymore!" She exclaimed, sitting up and looking at him. Actually, it was more than that. She'll be fighting a battle called 'Gran' for the rest of her life without anyone to back her up. But of course, nobody knew that but her. To her cousins, Gran was a sweet, stubborn old lady who fusses over them all the time and to them, they think she does it out of care when in reality, she just wants to control everybody's lives. To Mary, though she was a completely different person. To Mary, Gran was her tormentor. She tormented Jon, she tormented Liz, and, because she is her father's daughter and the reason why she was forced to accept her eldest daighter's marriage, she torments Mary. There was so much Mary wanted to say. But she didn't, for the sake of privacy.

"Leave her alone, Josh." She heard a voice by the doorway. Both of them looked towards the door and saw Mike standing there, looking sternly at Josh and motioning him to come over. Josh stood up and went outside, standing beside his brother who looked pissed and disappointed

"What?" Josh asked Mike, only to be grabbed by the ear and dragged all the way to his room. "What the hell was that for?!" He exclaimed as Mike shut the door.

"Josh, where's your common sense?" Mike asked his brother.

"What do you mean? I was just talking to her!"

"Josh, she is not a test subject to be observed! She's not someone who you can use for your psychology studies! She's your cousin! A cousin who just lost her parents, give her some space!" Mike scolded his little brother like he did before, when he was caught experimenting on a cat.

"God, Mike, I'm trying to help her! I'm actually using what I learned to help our baby cousin!" He exclaimed.

"She needs time, Josh! It won't be over in a snap! And she's not a baby anymore, Josh! She's 18, she can handle things already. This is something she needs to go through herself. You can't force your help on her!" Mike exclaimed as he saw his brother look down at his feet, not saying anything for a while and the tension thick in the air. After a long silence, he spoke up.

"I just don't want her to lose herself to grief. Not after what happened to mom and dad." At the mention of their parents, Mike's features softened as he recalled their parents' incident. They were young boys, still, when it happened. Their mother and father had an argument, one night, and it ended up with their mother walking out of the screen door, the two boys running on their front yard and calling after her with fat tears running down their eyes. A few days have passed and their dad drank, smoked, and gambled his grief away. The next day, their dad packed up their things and dropped them off at the Rogers Estate. That was the last time they saw their parents. Their mother disappeared without a trace, and their father ran off and got married to someone younger that their mother. It was a tragic day for both of them. Grief drew their family away from their obligations and soon forgot about them. It was from that day, that they've learned what grief can do to people.

"Josh, that was different," Mike said, feeling the same bitterness he always felt whenever the subject of their parents rose. "This is Mary we're talking about. Not someone who easily forgets about their lives." He said and Josh looked up to his brother, the same pain written on his face.

"I just don't want her to change like them... I don't want her to forget like they did." Josh said.

"She won't. She can make it."

* * *

Dinner was a glum and silent affair. The five of them sat at the awfully long table in the dining area as the sounds of silverware hitting ceramic echoed through the empty and dead silent room. As for now, all of them had no words for each other; Mary, who won't bother a conversation with her grandmother present, Marge, who's still accepting the fact that she had lost a daughter, the brothers, who were still tense from their previous conversation, and finally, their grandfather Henry, who has accepted what Marge cannot and is just silent because he just wants to be, and has no other words to say.

"Mary, eat some more. You're not eating right." Marge finally said in a commanding tone, looking at Mary with a pointed look.

The brothers, who knew a bit about the feud between grandmother and granddaughter, looked at Mary who gripped her fork tightly in her hand and scraping it on her plate with a loud screech, not wincing or twitching a bit.

"I'm not hungry." She muttered.

"You know what diets can do to you. One day, I heard that the family of Jeff Peterson lost-"

"I'm not hungry." Mary said, who looked at her grandmother with a challenging stare. Before she could do anything rash, she excused herself and stood up, leaving the dining room and leaving her fuming grandmother to rant on about her.

"That girl is a spoiled brat, I tell you. She's better off on the streets to teach herself a lesson. She should be grateful that I'm taking her in. I'll have the burden of taking care of her and this is what I get?" Marge ranted, hoping to get the three men on the table on her side, but to no avail, they didn't bite.

"Gran, Mary's grieving. Have patience with her." Mike said.

"No, its not her grief! She's abusing her parent's situation to bully me like that and says she's grieving! Can't you see that?" She exclaimed.

"What's your problem with her?"Josh said, standing up and looking at Marge with the same challenging look on his face.

"I'm old and I deserve kindness, res-"

"What is your problem with Mary?" Josh asked again, ignoring his brother's attempts to stop him. He has watched his cousin and his grandmother fight their little war for as long as he can remember and he's tired of not knowing anything about it.

"She needs to respect me and treat me with kindness!" She exclaimed, standing up and shouting at Josh who rolled his eyes.

"Well if you treat her kindly, she'll probably do the same to you!" Josh tells her and this seemed to agitate her even more.

"I am her grandmother! She needs to respect me!" She exclaimed and Josh just sighed.

"Its the same thing over and over again! I know this is something more personal! And you'll be no better than Mary, using your position as our grandmother for her to respect you only to bully her back!" At this Marge just took her plate and smashed it on the floor, shattering it into pieces before storming out of the room. Josh sat back, exhausted and took his glass of water only to down it in one gulp.

"This family has serious issues." Mike said, drawing out the 'e' and leaning back to release a breath he didn't realize he's been holding.

"No shit." Josh said, glaring at the empty space that was once his grandmother. Their grandfather, although silently eating throughout the whole argument, has not been ignorant and took the situation in calmly. He looked at his two grandsons after wiping his mouth with a table napkin and sighing, leaning forward to talk withMike and Josh.

"Look, boys, you have to understand your grandmother. Not only is she old, but she still has some issues with your Uncle Jon an Aunt Liz. Sadly, they didn't part in the best of terms and Jon and Liz's death seemed to make it worse."

"But why drag Mary into this?" Josh asked.

"Your cousin, you see, is a spirited girl. I'm guessing that Jon and Liz, at one point in her life, told her about the issue and she realized that it was true. And if you were to chose between two people who you've known all your life and a person who you only get to see once or twice a year, who do you think you'd pick?" Henry asked and watched as Josh's features softened a bit. Henry leaned back, and thought of a plan. "Okay, here's what I'll be doing. I'll convince your grandmother on a week long trip with me to her relatives. Meanwhile, in a few days, the grandsons of a friend of mine will be staying here for a few days."

"Gramps, you can trust us with the house." Mike said jokingly, and for the first time that night, a smoke was brought to the lips of the three men.

"No. Its not that I don't trust you. Their grandfather is a good friend of mine, you see, and they're planning to move to a flat in town. They checked the flat they bought and it needed renovations so they'll be staying here for a while until the flat is fixed." Henry explained.

"And, where do they fit in with Mary?" Josh asked.

"The oldest of the two brothers is named Philip. You might have met him during the funeral," Henry said but the brothers shook their heads."Well, I think that its time that your cousin meets him. An extroadinary fellow, he is. I think he'll be able to take Marge out of Mary's mind for a while, don't you think?" He asked, a twinkle in his eye as he smiled.

"You mean to set her up?" Mike asked and Henry just nodded.

"Then. when their minds are settled and distracted, then we can find a way to end this petty fraud between Marge and Mary."

* * *

"Is it true, then? Is she really going to be away for the weekend?"

"Yes, Mary. She is."

"Can we open one of Gramp's bottles?"

"No, Mary, we cannot open Gramp's bottles."

"Then what would we do while they're away?"

"Prove to me that you'll be using this to cool off and that Gramps' time wasn't wasted."

* * *

It was a Sunday morning, the most peaceful day, yet Mary's most hated one. She couldn't understand why people loved Sundays at all! They were quiet, it feels like the sun's shining too brightly, and her grandmother was always sitting by the small altar she had made in the end of her hallway. She hated it. Apparently, this day was a tad bit different that the Sundays in her life. Yes, it was quiet, yes, it was too sunny, but there was one thing that she was happy about; her grandmother wasn't there. She didn't have to wake up to her grandmother silently sitting at the end of the hallway, muttering an 'amen' every now and then. And it was then, that she had plugged in her phone and blasted her speakers so loud that she almost didn't hear the door bell ringing. Pausing the song, she ran down the enormous staircase, and slid her way down to the door, Queen still on her mind. When she opened her eyes, she could not be any more surprised. It was the man with those blue eyes...

Philip.

* * *

**Okay, so not much happens and you guys might think this has nothing to do with the Middle Earth universe, but it does. I'll reveal it in the middle of the story. Thanks for hanging on, guys! :) Please don't forget to leave and review! I want to know how I can make this story to your liking :)**

**~Gabrielle**


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